Ghost Towns – The First 8K Video on Youtube

Youtube can now display not just 4K videos but also in 8K (or 7680 × 4320 pixel resolution) videos. and the first 8K short video was recently published on the website and you can (more or less) check it out on above.

The videographer behind this interesting project called”Ghost Towns” is Luke Neumann who used a 6K EPIC DRAGON camera and according to nofilmschool:

[The Video was shot in] Portrait orientation and then stitched together in Adobe After Effects. Some shots simply scaled up by 125% from 6.1K to meet the 7.6K standard. Handheld stuff was just 6K FF. Scaled up by 125% and sharpened up a bit more than the others. The slider shots that had the secondary pan/tilts in them were also 6K FF. The true 8K shots were the ones that just had pans or tilts or simple dolly moves with no pan/tilt action.

This is obviustly a very complex technique which isn’t practical for most video/film creators at the moment. However there are several cameras which can shoot 8K natively without complex post processing. One of them is the new RED 8K Weapon which will be available later this year with an unbelievable resolution of 8192×4320 and a 8K 75fps mode.

Still you might ask, and rightfully so, how can you actually enjoy 8K as there are no commercial displays which support this standard at the present time. There is no real answer at the moment although 8K prototype displays have been around for several years (like the 8K Sharp display shown below with 33 MegaPixel resolution).

The first 8K TV display shown in Japan back in 2011

Despite the lack of a way to watch Youtube’s 8K videos in full resolution at the present time, it is clear that most of the cinema industry and more and more videographers are moving into 4K despite the relatively small number of displays which support this ultra high resolution (even in Japan 4K display sold just over 7% of the total number of displays in a recent study – and around the world the numbers are much lower). Adoption of 8K will take even longer but Youtube support should help make this standard more accessible in the future.

8K support on Youtube – now there is also content – but can you really watch it?

Update: According to the good people from 9to5google who were able to get an answer from Google:

8K video has been supported since 2010, but that labeling for 8K video (the 4320p/8K quality setting like pictured above) was added “earlier this year.”

More photography related technology videos can be found on our photo-tech section here on LensVid.